


Day 15: Ratchet

by GemmaRose



Series: Lost Light Fest 2019 [10]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Functionist Universe (Transformers), Grief/Mourning, Love Letters, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 20:24:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21042254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: Once, Pharma had used his sparkmate as a guiding star. What Would Ratchet Do was a question applicable to a surprising number of situations, both practical and moral. Since Ratchet's death and the Council's rise in power, however, it's gotten harder to follow outside of work.Harder, but not impossible.





	Day 15: Ratchet

**Author's Note:**

> Did I write the Ratchet day without any actual Ratchet in it? Yes, yes I did. It's still mostly _about_ him though.

It had been ages since Pharma had needed to ask himself what Ratchet would do in any sort of situation, and longer still since he'd been able to take the course of action his late sparkmate would've endorsed. And yet, as he stared at the encrypted datapad which had found its way to the front desk of his building, he couldn't help but contemplate just that. Ratchet would've installed the provided decryption key and commed the sender immediately, he was sure. Someone needed help, and Ratchet had never been able to stand idly by when others were in need. It was what had gotten him killed, in the end.

Pharma knew that he should turn the datapad over to the authorities, they would surely be grateful for the lead on whichever rebel group sent this, but the mere though curdled the fuel in his tank. _Destroy it, then_ a voice in his processor hissed, and Pharma stood with the datapad clutched tight in his hands. He had to destroy it completely and utterly, wipe the data so thoroughly not even the Council's best could retrieve it, whoever it was from. He had an electromagnet he could pass over the hard drive, wipe it completely. Maybe reuse it for work and then dispose of it through the hospital, it was a common enough model of datapad and swapping cases was pathetically easy. His optics flicked over it again, and he froze in the middle of his hab. There was already a hospital symbol in the corner, one merged with the image of a wrench.

It wasn't the symbol of any hospital or clinic on Cybertron, but he still knew it as well as he knew the ache in his spark. This had been one of Ratchet's personal datapads, the mech had just ordered more when the Council had him executed for treating the wrong sort. Pharma's spark wrenched painfully in his chest as he stumbled over to the couch and fell onto it, already unspooling a cable from his wrist to download the decryption key. Perhaps this wasn't a call for help at all, but something of Ratchet's which had been uncovered by an old acquaintance?

Pharma reset his optics as the decryption key finished installing in his processor, and when he powered on the datapad was met with a passcode screen. Ratchet had always been stubborn about his codes, using one handful for personal things and another set for professional. Pharma, of course, had known both, but while the professional ones changed every few meta-cycles Ratchet hadn’t updated his personal passcodes since, well, the mega-cycle he added their bonding date to the list. Pharma typed it in, and his spark spun faster when the datapad unlocked to show Ratchet’s familiar handwriting.

Dearest Pharma it read at the top in Ratchet’s usual scrawl, and his spark chamber clenched at the sight of his designation rendered with subglyphs of affection, the way Ratchet had always said it when they curled together in their berth late at night. He would never forget the way it had felt when Ratchet traced those glyphs on his plating, fingers sliding over his hands, his wings, anywhere he could reach.

It’s been a deca-cycle now, since I was dragged offworld with the Prime’s entourage for this ridiculous tour, and it will surely have been another deca-cycle by the time this message reaches you. I miss you terribly, but I know better than to worry over you, and I can only hope you aren’t worrying over me. Pharma lowered the datapad and shuttered his optics, drawing a deep ventilation to steady himself. He remembered that stellar cycle clearly, they had still been newly bonded and it was the first time Ratchet had been called away for so long. On a trip to visit some pointless mining colonies, because the Prime was _bored_.

It explained how the datapad had been lost, though. The building they’d lived in had been collateral damage in a shuttle crash just mega-cycles after Ratchet left, and Pharma had more or less lived in his office until Ratchet returned. It wouldn’t’ve done to go and pick a new apartment without his conjunx’s input, after all. Unfortunately, that did mean most of their mail from that time had been marked undeliverable and either returned to sender or dropped in a crate somewhere and forgotten. He wondered briefly how it had finally found its way to him, then shook the thought off and lifted the datapad again, optics flitting hungrily over his late sparkmate’s handwriting.

It wasn’t much of a letter, really, just Ratchet talking about how dull the trip was and he couldn’t wait to be home, to get back to work and back to his clinic. To hold Pharma again and kiss him senseless. Primus, what Pharma wouldn’t give to be able to relive that memory right now. To be able to look up from the couch and see Ratchet walk in with a look of utter confusion, asking what happened to their hab. To pull his conjunx close and bury his face in neck cables which, just then, had smelled like the fancy solvents the Prime’s ship used. To let himself relax into a field he’d missed all the more sharply for not being able to stay in the hab they’d been making into a home together.

Pharma shook himself free of the recall thread, armour clamping tight to his plating as he reminded himself that that would never happen again, nor anything even remotely similar. Ratchet was gone, murdered by the Council’s thugs, the attack made to look like an accident. As if anyone in the Dead End, even the most strung-out addict, would’ve harmed the one mech that treated them all as equals no matter what laws the Council passed. Ratchet was dead and gone and all Pharma had left of him were little things, photographs and letters, gifts they’d given each other for anniversaries over the vorns.

Yours in spark eternally, Ratchet he’d signed it, because back then they had truly thought they had forever. Ratchet was the Prime’s personal physician and Pharma the head doctor of one of the best hospitals in Iacon, they were alt-mode exempt and too skilled to be quietly disposed of. Until Ratchet hadn’t been, until the matrix had passed from the Prime to the Council and Ratchet had been replaced. Pharma set the datapad down, and the screen scrolled further. Past the signature, to a new line of text.

_I’m sorry for using Ratchet’s memory like this, but you wouldn’t’ve read this if you didn’t think it was from him._

Pharma snatched the datapad back up, a scowl on his face as he flicked to the very bottom of the vandalisation. Who would dare to use the memory of his _dead sparkmate_ for their own gain? The end didn’t even have a designation, just a comm code. A secured one, presumably, given the trouble they must’ve gone through to get their hands on this datapad, hack it open, edit in their own message and then get it delivered to him. He glanced back up, optics scanning over the single paragraph tacked onto the end and actually reading it this time.

_I do this because your comms are certainly being monitored, along with your optic feed, but I have no other choice. One of our own, one of my friends, has been mutilated by the Council. We have him stable and in stasis, but until he is repaired and the new hardware either replaced or properly integrated, he cannot be brought back online. I cannot fix him, but perhaps you can. Comm the code at the end of this message one ping for no, two pings for yes. Please help us, Pharma. You’re his only hope._

He read the paragraph through a second time, and a third, before finally he realized what made it read so strangely. His designation throughout the rest of the letter had been written in Ratchet’s manner, affectionate and longing. This one was written with utmost respect, addressing him as students had done when he still deigned to give guest lectures at Iacon’s Medical Academy. And for the mystery sender to turn to him, rather than any of his more soft-sparked colleagues, few though they were, they must know him personally. Perhaps one of the few apprentices he’d taken on, before Ratchet’s death?

He shut off the screen of the datapad and tossed it aside for good this time, standing from the couch and pacing over to the nearest window. Iacon was still a beautiful city, but the type of beauty it possessed had changed over the meta-cycles. Once it had been a hub of constant activity, mechs ceaselessly rushing about, each one embroiled in their own life. Now it stood quiet, streets and skies nearly empty save for Council drones. One floated by the end of the block, and Pharma drew the curtains. He should ignore the message entirely, tuck the datapad away with the rest of Ratchet’s things and let it be just one more keepsake, a relic from the life of peace and security he’d lost with the snuffing of his conjunx’s spark.

But Ratchet would’ve answered them. Ratchet would never have ignored a cry for help which went to so much effort as this, locating and re-sending a datapad so long lost it must’ve been buried in a scrap heap. Ratchet had died for his kind spark, and ever since Pharma had been trying not to follow him. Staying under the Council’s radar was easy enough when you were the best medic this side of the galaxy, though they hated him for being a jet and defying the stereotypes of his frametype. One slip-up would be all they needed to justify stripping him of his alt-mode exemption and casting him out on the streets, or worse, forcibly reassigning him to a “proper” flier’s job.

But Pharma was no fool, he knew better than to let himself be caught. It would be nothing at all to take a few mega-cycles off, spend one doing nothing in particular, and then loop the feed to the sensors in his optics that fed data back to the Council’s systems for as long as he needed. So long as he wasn’t caught leaving, they would have no reason at all to so much as suspect him of doing anything but taking some time for himself.

Ratchet would’ve done the same without hesitation.

He dialed up the comm code and sent two pings.


End file.
